Jesus’s Strength Is Perfected In Our Weakness

Have you ever wondered what it is to prostrate before God? Yes, it is to submit to Him but there is so much more than just that. It is about putting God before everything, even yourself. It is to magnify Him, even if comes at the cost of lowering yourself. It is to say, that Lord you are my God, in the sense, you know Jesus reigns over all and you surrender to that irresistible grace, wherein your sinful rebellion waves that white flag of surrender, like a soldier in a war, for God has done more than destroyed sin in your life, He has also saved you. Unlike the unbeliever who is destroyed with his/her sin, only know Jesus as Lord (Phil 2:10-11) but never as a saviour as God did not choose to bestow His mercy on him/her, as He does so with the believer who knows Jesus as both Lord & Saviour, having been saved by His unmerited and unconditional love.

2 Cor 12:7-10
So, to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

John 4:21-24
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

From the above two verses, we understand that true worship is based on truth, it is about worshipping the One true Triune God who is revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:18), and the God-the-Holy-Spirit (John 14:16-17, 26) through scripture (2Tim 3:16-17). So, going back to the account of the fall of Adam, where mankind became a law unto themselves (Gen 3:1-6), we understand that our weakness in the area of our will be done (like we are gods to ourselves), is where God’s strength is perfected in us. For in that weakness, we are given repentance unto salvation, giving up our godhead which we achieve through nothing more than deceit and wickedness, to receive the One true Triune God as our Lord.

2 Cor 7:10
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Psalm 119:71-75
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word. I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

Psalm 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Now, before I come to the next point about Christian discipline, I would like to quote Charles Spurgeon…

“So, whatever has happened to you, see the hand of God in it. A dog, if it be struck with a stick, bites the stick. Well, that may be all that we can expect from a dog; but you who are no dog must look to the hand that holds the stick, and not to the instrument with which you are smitten, and then you dare not bite the blessed hand that only intends your good in striking you. See God’s hand, then, in all that happens to you, and that will help you on the way to a very blessed state of contentment.”
-C. H. Spurgeon

“God’s Sovereignty is the pillow upon which the believer rests his head at night.”
-C. H. Spurgeon

I am not perfected in discipline and neither do I believe that you should not take righteous action against those who cause harm to you, your family or your property. After all, if Satan will glorify God’s justice forever in hell, the unbeliever/non-Christian will also get their dues paid in full, with some foretaste of it while they live on the earth, thanks to people who will stand up for what is right and be conduits of delivering God’s justice unto these illegitimate children of God. For this reason, the state is also an institution of God (Isaiah 9:6), which dishes God’s justice on the deserving. However, with the apostate state trying to play God, suddenly the Biblical reference that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind comes up when prosecuting criminals, while it is somehow ok to prosecute the innocent for the crimes of others, as these are two sides of the same coin.

Mat 5:38-39
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Rom 12:19
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

So, as much as you wouldn’t bite a rabid dog for biting you. We understand that the Biblical context of an eye for an eye and turn the other cheek, is not to give way for wickedness but to persevere in continually exercising the righteousness of God, which this damn world hates, and we are not to respond by resorting to their own wicked devices, in getting back at them. Instead, just as you would put down a rabid dog and not bite it for biting you, so also the wicked need to be put down for their crimes as defined by the judicial law in the Bible, which is given to the Christian State (not the Church).

Hebrews 12:3-8 (About being disciplined)
Consider him (Jesus) who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Coming back to the subject of discipline, in view of 2 Cor 7:10, Psalm 119:71-75, Psalm 23:4 and the Charles Spurgeon quotes cited above, we understand from the Biblical context of God’s sovereignty that these measures of discipline are all for our good (Rom 8:28), put in place by God, that even if it has to come by the hand of Satan himself, it is at Jesus behest (Mat 28:18-20/Job 1:12 & 2:3/Luke 12:31-33). This discipline keeps the God-fearing man or woman out of sin harm’s way and builds a hedge in securing the believer. even if it has to come at the cost of the Christian losing his/her life (Mark 9:42-50/Mat 10:28).

Mat 11:25-30
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Also, considering the verse above, we understand that just as a yoke placed on the neck of an animal, lowers the animal’s head as the animal labours for its master. So also, the believer is brought to prostrate before the Lord Jesus, in which he/she sums up the courage to do the will and good pleasure God (James 1:22-25) by the power in Christ working in the Christian. For as much as a person hates those who hate what he/she loves, and loves those who love whom he/she loves… these in whom the strength of God is perfected in their weakness, their prostration before the Lord, is their very strength in which they stand up to a godlessly-totalitarian and tyrannical world.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

We therefore, see throughout scripture that spiritual prostration/obedience is a delightful thing, wherein the Christian who exercises his/her Christian faith even in the face of the world’s hostility, finds freedom. For the truth has set the Christian free (John 8:31-32), who once as an unbeliever, sucked up to tyrants to serve his/her own damn vested interest but in coming to faith in the Lord Jesus, the Christian finds his/her sustenance in yielding to Jesus and serving God’s interest over his/her own. Therefore, every circumstance the Lord decrees in the life of the believer, brings to mind the message of Jeremiah 30: 22, which says “And you will be My people, and I will be your God”. This inadvertently echoes the same message where God’s strength is perfected in the believer’s weakness, so as to repeatedly emphasise and reemphasise the truth/Gospel in the mind of the Christian.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Romans 8:1, 29-30
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
…
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

This spiritual prostration is thereby genuine and serves as evidence that the believer has transitioned from being a self-serving dastardly devious slave to sin to becoming a slave to righteousness in Christ (Psalm 37:4/2Cor 5:17), wherein the Christian finds his/her ultimate purpose, having been restored in Jesus, to reflect the very nature of God, which is His Law that we ought to live by, as our own nature (1Pet 2:4-8). This is where beauty is so deep that it springs forth from the soul (Mat 13:23) which has been regenerated by the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, unlike the superficial beauty of the people of the world that stays for a time, the beauty or handsomeness of the true Christian is eternal, carried beyond the grave and perfected in Christ (Phil 1:6) for the glory of the One true Triune God alone.